Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CYBERKEN who wrote (407805)	5/20/2003 9:34:42 PM
From: Neeka	Respond to of 769670

Have you heard of Oswaldo Paya? Castro is on the way out.......democracy is on the way in. I imagine some of the Gollywood elite on the left will be very disappointed. He is using Cuban law to make his point. I won't be surprised if he ends up dead though. M Dissident Accuses Cuba of Manipulating Fear of U.S. Invasion By DAVID GONZALEZ IAMI, May 19 — Cuba's leading dissident faulted his government today for manipulating fears of an invasion by the United States to justify its harsh line on opposition. Oswaldo Payá, the leader of the Varela Project petition drive seeking personal and political freedoms, spoke by telephone on the eve of a periodic review in Washington covering American policy toward Cuba that may result in a tightening of restrictions on contact. Mr. Payá, emphasizing that any resolution to Cuba's political situation must be peaceful and home-grown, said that Cuban officials had seized upon President Bush's decision to invade Iraq to alarm the Cuban public over a possible American invasion, even though Bush administration officials had rejected that possibility. "The proposition is that we continue with this order without rights or face a supposed invasion from the United States," Mr. Payá said in a telephone interview from his Havana home. "We say the peaceful alternative is possible." In April, some 75 dissidents — a majority of them Varela Project activists — were sentenced to lengthy prison terms after being convicted in brief trials for collaborating with American diplomats on the island. Three would-be hijackers were also tried and executed. Mr. Payá, who said he has met with the relatives of several prisoners, also criticized the government for jailing them in dark cells, without enough food and far from their communities and families. "I denounce this as torture and a violation against their health and their physical and psychological integrity," he said. The government's actions drew international condemnations. American officials said they had since undertaken a policy review to see how best to support the opposition and ensure a peaceful transition to democracy. Among the options floated were stricter enforcement of a ban on travel to Cuba and cutting off cash remittances. Already, the Treasury Department announced new regulations — to become final at the end of this month — that would severely curtail cultural, artistic and other exchanges. Treasury officials had said that many of these had become little more than a cover for Americans to visit Cuba as tourists. Still, some American lawmakers continue to urge an easing of the travel ban, saying increased contact with Cuban society will help foster democracy. Mr. Payá said that while he welcomed American support, he did not want to see his fellow dissidents receive financing from the United States. "We accept moral solidarity from the United States," he said. "But this must be done by and among Cubans within Cuba. We have to de-Americanize the view of a solution of the Cuban problem." The Cuban government, however, continues to accuse the United States of planning an invasion, most recently when a high-ranking official told ABC News on Sunday that Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida was urging his brother, the president, to attack. Dozens of intellectuals and artists, from the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú to Danny Glover, the actor, have signed a petition that condemns what they assert is a campaign to destabilize Cuba as a pretext for an invasion. The Cuban government today repeated those accusations as it withdrew from the table its application for a trade and aid pact with the European Union, saying that European officials had imposed "unacceptable conditions." nytimes.com